Medtronic, Inc. : Minnesota Timberwolves Star Ricky Rubio Teams Up with
Medtronic Foundation to Save Young Lives from Sudden Cardiac Arrest
Medtronic, Inc.
Rubio Helps Web Visitors Save a "Virtual" Life at HeartRescueNow.com
MINNEAPOLIS, February 5, 2013 -Minnesota Timberwolves basketball star Ricky
Rubio joins the Medtronic Foundation this February in saving young lives
worldwide from sudden cardiac arrest (SCA). Through the Foundation's
HeartRescue Project, Rubio will lend a "virtual" hand in teaching the public
how to respond quickly to an SCA emergency.
Sudden Cardiac Arrest is the leading cause of death in young athletes-every
three days a young athlete dies of SCA in the United States. According to the
American Academy of Pediatrics 2,000 Americans under the age of 25 die of SCA
annually, and the risk of SCA is three times greater in competitive athletes.
Overall, nearly 385,000 Americans die from SCA each year, more than breast,
lung, colon, and prostate cancer combined.
Now with the help of Rubio, the HeartRescue Project is unveiling the latest
life-saving innovation, an interactive online experience called the
"Save-A-Life Simulator" found on HeartRescueNow.com. Using first person
point-of-view videos, the viewer joins Rubio for a workout at the gym where
they both witness a person collapse from SCA.
In the "choose your own adventure" style videos, Rubio helps guide visitors
through a series of critical choices, starting with an initial decision to
help the victim or ignore the situation and keep working out.
The online experience promotes proper and timely bystander response to SCA,
using hands-only CPR and an automated external defibrillator (AED). The hope
is that Rubio's involvement will draw attention to the prevalence of SCA and
its effect among young athletes, as well as provide a quick and basic
technique for saving the life of an SCA victim.
"Sudden cardiac arrest can happen to anyone, even healthy athletes," says
Ricky Rubio, Minnesota Timberwolves point guard. "Knowing how to quickly
respond to this kind of crisis can help save someone's life - including a
teammate or friend of yours."
In addition to the Simulator, Rubio and Timberwolves players will attend
clinics hosted at Twin Cities' schools in February as part of the
Timberwolves' FastBreak Foundation WolvesFit month. These clinics will focus
on health and fitness and show students the importance of responding to a
victim of SCA - knowing that it could happen to anyone in their school.
A corresponding public service announcement (PSA) featuring Rubio will air
nationally and at home Timberwolves games, driving viewers to
HeartRescueNow.com to access the interactive online learning tool. Both the
PSA and simulator featuring Rubio were also created in Spanish to reach a
wider audience.
SCA is a sudden, abrupt loss of heart function primarily caused by rapid
and/or chaotic electrical activity. It occurs without warning and renders a
person clinically dead within minutes unless treated with CPR and
defibrillation.
In 2012, the HeartRescue Project produced the original "Save-a-Life Simulator"
featuring an SCA victim amid a busy shopping mall and is also accessible on
HeartRescueNow.com. This was the first-ever online experience that strung
together many of the possible reactions to witnessing SCA in real time. Since
its launch, more than 5 million people have learned how to save a life.
About the HeartRescue Project
The HeartRescue Project assembles some of the country's leading emergency and
resuscitation experts to expand successful city and county SCA response
programs to statewide levels. The goal is to improve out-of-hospital cardiac
arrest survival rates by at least 50 percent over five years in the
geographies funded by the program. Learn more about the HeartRescue Project at
www.heartrescueproject.com.
About the Medtronic Foundation
The Medtronic Foundation is committed to improving the lives of people around
the world living with chronic disease, with a majority of its support
thoughtfully aligned with Medtronic's commitment to expand access to quality
healthcare among underserved populations. In addition, Medtronic Foundation
supports heath initiatives in communities where Medtronic employees live and
give. www.medtronicfoundation.org
About Medtronic
Medtronic, Inc. (www.medtronic.com), headquartered in Minneapolis, is the
global leader in medical technology - alleviating pain, restoring health, and
extending life for millions of people around the world.
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Contacts:
Rich Fischer
Public Relations
+1-763-505-2975
Annie Dubsky
Exponent PR
+1-612-305-6376
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Source: Medtronic, Inc. via Thomson Reuters ONE
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